The present invention relates in general to data processing systems and, in particular, to an operating system implementing user activity profiles.
Various commercially available computer operating systems support multiple user profiles on a single physical computer system. User profiles define state information for the various users of a computer, including, for example, a set of accessible applications, network connections, storage devices and/or other resources, a desktop wallpaper, desktop icons, start menu icons, browser bookmarks, font colors and sizes, etc. In many cases, at least some of the state information for each user is user-customizable, enabling individual users to control the overall look and feel of their personal accounts. Implementation of multiple user profiles in this manner allows multiple users to access the same set of hardware and software resources while preserving the contextual state of each user in the presence of other users logging on to different user profiles.